Jackie Morris Childrens Book Illustration, watercolour painting, greetings cards

"Stones and walls mark where a village once stood. There are no people now. All you can hear are the cries of buzzards, the chipping of stonechats, the tumbling notes of the skylarks and the distant song of the sea."

painting of raven on chimney pot

painting of wheatear

painting of barnowl on chimney

I spent months walking through the landscape in The Seal Children, visiting the village in all seasons. In February the sky is filled with the loud "cronking" noise of the raven as they fly mating flights, tumbling in the air, falling from the sky and turning on their backs to fly up-sidedown. Later in spring skylark song rains down, and the stonchats chip in the gorse, like stones clicking together in the hand.

Choughs call across the fields and curlew in autumn are mournful and erie.

Birds are all around us, in towns and villages, and very much taken for granted and yet they lead amazing lives. Ravens pair for life. Tiny wrens find small holes in walls in winter and gather in tight balls of tiny birds in order to keep warm. Swallows fly thousands of miles every year to nest in the same place after journeying to Africa and the Mediterranean for the winter. Sheerwaters live and nest in burrows underground. They fly close to the water, almost touching it with their wings like plough shares through a field, which is where they get their names from. Skylarks nest in cupped hollows in fields and banks of tall grass.

Woven through the text and pictures are birds and animals, including

buzzards
linnets
curlew
ravens
barnowls
skylarks
stonechats
oystercatchers
sheerwaters
dunlin

Look through the pages of the book and identify the different creatures. Make a fact file on the different birds and animals in the book.

Follow the links to pages on the web where you can hear birdsong.

Once when I was walking I heard a strange erie screaming noise coming from a dry stone wall. When I got closer I could just see a wedge-shaped face and bright eyes peering out at me, twinkling. It was a weasel in the wall. So I put a weasel in the book. Somewhere.

painting of curlews flying over small cottage

All birds fly differently. Small birds like wrens dart quickly through bushes, so fast. Goldfinch rise and fall and chirrup on the wing. Choughs wheel and tumble in balletic displays. Oyster catchers rise from their rocks calling a shrill piping warning. At one time they were called pied pipers because of their colour and their call.

Sit and watch the flight of birds for a while. Listen to a piece of music called "The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughn Williams. You can almost hear the bird flying higher and higher into the sky until it becomes a dot against the blue. Write a piece of music, or a poem or prose to describe the flight of birds.

painting of swallows flying

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